Chemistry

Construction of a new lab sciences building at Tennessee Tech is officially underway and was celebrated at a groundbreaking ceremony Friday afternoon.

“It’s really once in a lifetime opportunity to create something like this,” said university President Phil Oldham. “I couldn’t be prouder of the faculty and staff that have participated in bringing a collection of ideas together in a way that is going to really benefit Tech students for generations to come.”

The $90 million, 160,000-square-feet facility will be the largest academic building at Tech and the its first LEED certified building, housing the chemistry department, a portion of the biology department and lab space for earth sciences, physics and environmental sciences.

The new building replaces Foster Hall and will be the anchor for a new academic quad located immediately north of the Capital Quad residence halls on the site of a current parking lot.

“The people involved in this project have been very dedicated,” said Department of Chemistry Chair Jeff Boles. “They have been, and in some cases continue to be, involved in everything from classroom and laboratory design to flooring and furniture selection.”

A team of more than 40 faculty members worked closely with architects Upland Design Group in Crossville and Bauer-Askew Architecture in Nashville on the building design. Together they have incorporated collaborative spaces unlike any that have ever existed at Tech as part of the building’s design, allowing faculty and students to interact and work together in an unprecedented way.

“President Oldham wanted us to be fearless,” Boles said. “He wanted to be forward-thinking. He wanted us to design something better, something bigger, something ready for tomorrow that not only fostered and supported growth in enrollment but professional growth in faculty, staff and students.”

Design features focus on collaborative space, active learning and “Science on Display,” which is the appropriate use of glass in a building so that people can see what goes on.

“This building can best be described in the experiences that it will make possible,” said Department of Biology Chair Rob Kissell. “Those experiences are going to be transformative experiences, they are going to be enhanced experiences and they are going to be collaborative experiences. The new building will be transformative on campus on many levels.”

Upland Design Group in Crossville and Bauer-Askew Architecture in Nashville previously worked on Bell Hall, home of the Whitson-Hester School of Nursing.

The Christman Company, which also built Ray Morris Hall, home of the Millard-Oakley STEM Center, is the contractor for the building project.

The project was funded by the State of Tennessee in the university’s 2016 budget appropriation.